Encouraging youths to have a say

I saw this poster, and I thought that it's related to what we have covered for the past few weeks, encouraging youths to 'speak up' and use multi modal avenues like videos to voice their opinions on issues that they are interested in.

Thus, I feel that it's good that people are realizing the importance of this, and have come up with ways to promote it amongst our youths.

Critical Reading in Everyday Life

Obtained from: http://www.movieposter.com/poster/MPW-33994/Pokemon.html

As seen above, this is a movie poster for the first Pokemon movie, released way back in 1999 (yes, that's 10 years ago, though it doesn't seem that way).

Coding Competence

As mentioned above, this is a movie poster, and this can be seen from the words 'The First Movie' underneath the huge word 'Pokemon'. Below them, we have the words 'Catch it only in theatres', informing viewers of where to wathc the movie, and the 'November 10' in green below that also informs readers of when the movie will be shown in cinemas. Other less important information are located at the bottom, so that readers can choose whether to read them. The movie poster also informs readers of what the movie is about - the battle between Mewtwo and Mew. Those who are familiar with the series would know that these two pokemon are considered two of the rarest ones amongst the various pokemon in the show, and there are also foregrounded in the poster, taking up half of the whole poster, therefore being salient. At the lower left corner, there's a special section in dark green with yellow words 'Who's that pokemon? There's only one way to find out.' and accompanying the words are two pokemon which have been darkened to 'protect' their identities. As such, we can see how the image and words complement one another to achieve the aim of the poster.

Semantic Competence

The movie poster's motive is obviously, to attract movie-goers to watch the movie, which is why there are a lot of elements in the poster where the words attempt to entice the reader, for example the word 'only' in 'Catch it only in theatres', where it is implied that readers will not be able to watch the movie elsewhere, and 'Who's that pokemon? There's only one way to find out.', implying that the reader must watch the movie to find out the identities of these unknown pokemon. Also, the words 'The pokemon match of all time is here' right at the top further implies that for the viewers that have been following the cartoon, they must watch this battle, as it is the 'match of all time'.

All these elements work together to attract the audience and achieve its aim.

Pragmatic Competence

After looking at the poster, readers can decide whether to watch the movie.

Critical Competence

Students need to realize that movie posters are also used as advertisements for the movies, and not just information texts for the readers who wish to find out more about the movie. So by revealing little bits of information and creating some suspense through the words and images in the poster as highlighted above, movie posters serve this dual-purpose.


A Critical Reading Lesson

A favourite past time of Secondary School students is watching movies with friends, and pokemon is a cartoon that they would be familiar with, having watched or are still watching on television right now. So the movie poster will definitely be familiar to them, rather than some art house film poster or those that were shown very long ago. Even recent movies will make good examples, depending on the teacher's purpose.

My purpose is to facilitate students' realization that texts are not as 'simple' as they may assume them to be, and movie posters are examples of such texts. So what they see as a simple information text actually does much more than just providing information.

So I would begin the lesson by asking the students if they remember any cartoons that they have watched when they were younger, and a likely student response would be 'pokemon'. I will then follow up by asking (through a show of hands) if any of them have watched the pokemon movie when it was shown in the cinemas, and if they remember any memorable scenes.

Following their responses, I would then show them a copy of the poster and ask if they remember it, and a number of them would probably agree. I will then ask them what they think of the poster, whether it ties in with what they remember about the movie, what information does the poster provide.

I will then show them an advertisement, and ask them to tell me the features of the advertisement. I will bring out the movie poster again and ask them to compare the features of the two texts and whether they are any similarities between both, thereby helping them realize that movie posters can also function as advertisements.

As a follow-up activity, I will ask them to work in groups and give them other movie posters to search for the advertising elements within them and present it to the rest of the class.


Just my 2 cents worth,
=^.^=

Comments on Classmates' Interpretations of the Flower picture

After reading through the class's interpretations, I realized that as per Barthes' idea of connotations, that everyone's interpretations of the picture of the flower is different, depending on our own experiences, prior knowledge, etc.

For example, Sujing identified the flower as spider lilies, while not many of us did so. She also used the picture of the white lilies as a metaphor for the lives of young children as they grow older, "white lilies which symbolises pure and innocent seems to be depicting young children who are green to the environment and society. They are still oblivious to the danger around them. However, as they were to get older. They may be tainted with habits such as "smoking" or "drinking" which are ususally associated as unacceptable at the health angle. These tainted habits are then symbolised by the withering browish colour (which could also represent the colour of the lungs or heart of smokers?)"

On the other hand, Aishah has a totally different interpretation of the picture, "I would also say that white flowers represents death to me because I associate white flowers as the type of flowers to bring to a funeral. Perhaps this is because I saw on television a few times before whereby a female would place a white flower on the coffin as a pay of respect. It is also because I grew up believing that angels are white in colour because their glow and purity."

Yet another person has a different idea, where Pavani feels that, "life can be beautiful and growing vibrantly but the downside is that if you do not provide for yourself the necessities to keep alive, life may be wilted. It can also be interpreted that in life, the stronger people may outdo you by taking up your necessities so it is up to you to compete in order to survive. It is up to every individual to prevent him/herself from wilting and to enjoy the beauty of life at every growing stage."

This is quite an eye-opener for me, as I never thought that there could be that many diverse interpretations of the same picture. So this exercise has really taught me to consider things from many different points of views, and not just stick to what is familiar and generally known, for it may not be the most applicable.

My Interpretation of the Flower

For starters, here's the picture of the flower that we're analyzing:


In this picture, we can see a contrast between the five stalks in full bloom, those that are withering and others which have already withered. The five stalks in bloom are given salience in the picture as they are placed in the center of the whole picture, the withering ones by their sides, while the withered ones are situated at the bottom of the picture, and thus, not given as much prominence.

The denotation of this naturalistic image may just be that of flowers in NIE, but everyone's interpretation and connotation is different due to our individual backgrounds and experiences.

To me, the picture seems metaphoric, as it seems to imply 'Survival of the Fittest', where the strongest survive, and the rest just wither and fall by the side. This is in tune with the competitive nature of the education system, not only in NIE, but all over the world, as only a small number of us will be able to attain excellent grades and graduate at the top of the class, while others have to settle for lower grades, and some may even not be able to graduate and just wither.

The colour of the flowers (white) also seems to signify eliteness, as those who do better in life are generally white-collared workers, who perform semi-professional office, administrative, and sales coordination tasks, thus linking back to the idea of 'Survival of the Fittest'.


This is just my interpretation of the picture, so please feel free to give me your comments:)

Malcom X - Looking up 'Black' in a dictionary

Here's the clip that was shown in our tutorial today, in relation to 'Literacy in Three Metaphors' by Sylvia Scribner, talking about metaphors:

Charlie Chaplin - Modern Times

Here's the Charlie Chaplin video that was mentioned on Pg 11 of the 'A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies' article, representing the "mindless, repetitive unskilled work on the industrial production line":

Replying the questions on 'Pedagogy of Multiliteracies' by New London Group

1. Overall, what is the point that this article attempts to make?

The article aims to introduce and 'sell' the idea of multiliteracies as a pedagogy, also introducing the notion of 'Design' which forms the basis of a metalanguage of multiliteracies, and subsequently, 'Available Designs', 'Designing', and 'The Redesigned' as its main elements; how pedagogy is an integration of four factors: 'Situated Practice', 'Overt Instruction', 'Critical Framing' and 'Transformed Practice', which are influenced by this notion of 'Design', and teachers can incorporate them in their teaching.

2. What aspects of 'multiplicity' does multiliteracies attempt to accommodate?

According to Kalantzis (1997), every single person does not just belong to one single community; instead, he/she belongs to multiple and overlapping communities, regardless of work, interest, affiliation, ethnicity, sexual identity, etc. Thus, multiliteracies attempt to accommodate the differences and similarities between people, whose multiple identities allow them to form relationships with others with similar part-identities.

For example, I am a Singaporean, studying in NIE, taking my degree in Arts, am part of the NIE Bachelor of Arts Club and NTU Contract Bridge Club, am currently staying in Hall 15, and am part of its Contract Bridge, Boggle and Scrabble teams for Inter-Hall. (and this is only a brief introduction) Thus, we can see that I am part of many different social circles and communities, and while some of them intersect (like my coursemates and club mates from the BA Club), and others do not, there are definitely differences in the way I act, or speak within these different communities.

As such, teachers can use the notion of multiliteracies to appeal to their students' diverse identities during their lessons.

3. What do the NLG mean by 'design'?

The NLG has defined 'design' in two ways - 1. structures; and 2. forms of meaning. The process of design involves three elements: 'Available Designs', 'Designing' and 'The Redesigned'. 'Available Designs' refers to the existing resources available, 'Designing' refers to the processes (eg. reading, seeing and listening) made on or with these existing resources, while 'The Redesigned' refers to the final product(s) from the 'Designing' phase.

4. How do you imagine multiliteracies pedagogy, as the NLG describe it, might operate in the contexts in which you have taught (e.g. your practicum experience(s))?

In terms of a language lesson, teachers can make use of the three elements of 'design' to engage their students in a fun and interesting manner. For example, when learning about the Narrative and its structure, the teacher can use the existing stories available (Available Designs) to introduce the text type and teach the students about its structure. The students can then write their own original stories (Designing) keeping in mind what they have learnt, incorporating images and also sound into their stories. They can even create flash animations of their stories, with an e-book being the final product (The Redesigned). There are many software available in the market that helps students to create this e-book more efficiently and effectively.

This is of course, not just limited to e-books, but also e-comics, games, news stories, etc. And many students in schools around Singapore are using such technology, for example, sending in their animations and video clips to Okto, news reports to Channel 8, etc.